It’s always hard to write a collective summary of an event that involved thousands of people, hundreds of sessions and multiple venues over several days, and Ars was no different. That’s probably why I have a problem with the theme “…what it takes to change.” Just seems like a bit of a cop-out as people love using the tag cloud of innovation: creativity, collaboration, disruption, bottom up, collaboration, etc… But I’m not denigrating the conference, just the magical intellectual confluence that supposedly happens!
Not sure how many sessions I attended, but they ranged from mind-expanding media art to pedantic neo-colonial type reductionist social critique. Ars is on the opposite end of the spectrum to something like the Media Lab. No big corporate sponsors or directed, actionable research here. That’s both good and bad.
In a few posts that follow I’ve included pics and some limited commentary.
Post-employment 